Teen Drowns In Western Pa. River

NEW BRIGHTON, Pa. (AP) – Authorities in western Pennsylvania say a teenager drowned while swimming with friends in a river.

New Brighton Area police say 16-year-old Joseph Cleckley was swimming with three other teens in the Beaver River on Saturday evening when he disappeared in the water. Emergency crews were called just before 8 p.m. and found his body less than an hour later about 100 yards upriver from the Fallston Bridge.

Sgt. Ron Walton said authorities have answered many calls from the same spot over the years and people swim in the river near the bridge “against their better judgment.’’ He and Capt. Gary Knight of the New Brighton Fire Department say storms that afternoon do not seem to have increased the current in the river but had made the water murkier.